Market gardeners plant vegetables, flowers and fruits in rows in cultivated areas, the areas being relatively quite image. A problem arises, particularly when plants are young, in that weeds compete with the desired plants. Traditional methods of dealing with this problem include mechanical cultivation, spraying with selective herbicides and/or hiring labour to hand hoe between plants.
Soil cultivating and loosening implements are known in which tines or blades are fixed or driven in a rotary or oscillating motion. These implements disturb the soil but do not deal with the problem of weeding between rows of plants and around plants in such rows.
It would be particularly desirable to develop a mechanical means to alleviate the problem discussed above, reduce the cost of labour and chemicals and deal with the problem in an environmentally friendly way.